Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

This post comes to you a few hours late today. This is my first big slip since I started the webcomic back in May (five months of daily comics!)

I usually like to bank a few comics ahead, so that I never miss a post if something comes up. Sometimes I do the whole story in one sitting (The Pinniped Party and Lewis and Clark were done that way.) I've been unusually busy this month, though, and haven't had time to stay ahead of the curve.

Phew. Anyway, today's post is here!

Science note: Pterosaurs were not dinosaurs, they were flying reptiles, so this cartoon has some scientific accuracy. Of course, they lived millions of years before cavemen did, so putting them together cancels the whole thing out.

Friday, September 25, 2009

The DINO-JOKES will be back tomorrow [er, Monday]. I hate to interrupt a story this early on, but today is a rare day, a special day--a book finishing day.

What was today's book? A book called ANIMAL HOUSE that will be out in 2010 from Walker & Company. I finished the interior illustrations this summer, but we took some extra time to supercharge the additional material, the endpaper, back cover and title page.

The title page was the very last piece of the puzzle. There might be some small fixes or tweaks, but as far as creating any new paintings goes, this book is finished.

Here's the title page:

The book is about a family who live in a house made of living animals. The striped background here is the "Whalepaper." It's a very weird, very fun book. I'll talk more about it when we get closer to the release date (a year from now.) The little lion is a painting version of Walker's cute lil' lion logo. I love it when a publisher lets me mess with their logo.

Back to the dinos! And I want some good comments left on the "Dinosardines" post. So far there are zero! Get busy!

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

I'm not going to tell you what this story is about, you'll have to peice it together from its cryptic, hard to understand title. My friend Rick Walton (author of over 5,000,000,000 picture books) is doing the writing on this one. Visit his website here.

Hold on to your walnut-sized brains, this is going to be prehisterical!

Monday, September 21, 2009

I thought we'd say goodbye to Lewis and Clark in style. So this weekend, my son and I built a replica of the famous Corps of Discovery keelboat. We used the most historically accurate material available--LEGO!

You can see the cabin at the back, the covered steering awning, and the mounted muskets. In the center is the collapsable mast that they would use to catch the wind. (I didn't use the mast in the cartoon, but it looks cool on the model.)

Here's a close-up of Lewis, Seaman (the dog) and Clark--about to jump overboard.

Friday, September 18, 2009

Yes, the Lewis and Clark trail can be traced by the mercury content remaining in the soil. How's that for a bizarre historical fact?

Actually, in researching this story, I found out that the Thunderbolt pills were only a small part of the mercury residue. The bulk of the mercury came from the corps drinking straight mercury, which was a stomach remedy in those days.

I hope you've all enjoyed Lewis and Clark and the Bottle of Thunder--I know I have, this has been my favorite story yet. Lewis and Clark may return, since this little story only covers the first two months or so of their trip. Heck, they haven't even met Sacagawea yet. There are plenty more adventures to come with L. and C.

Okay, this is a little departure from the main story line. But when I read that Lewis and Clark spent a full day trying to catch one prairie dog (they actually tried all these methods) I had to do a cartoon about it. In the end they were able to catch two; one for science, and one for, you guessed it, Captain Lewis' supper.